International Rock-Flipping Day, 2012 – In which the author learns a modicum of humility

[you find all sorts of things in the woods]

I spent the time leading up to international rock-flipping day sulking. I didn’t have any shoreline to explore—no lovely cobble beaches whose rocks I could lift, exposing the scuttling shore crabs and hermit crabs, the squirming polychaetes, the small snails gripping the underside of the stones themselves—so why bother?

Eventually I got over my sullen fit and decided to flip a few rocks in the aptly named Rock Creek Park. And, while my under-rocks discoveries were not magnificent, I’m very glad I did.

It had been a long time since I’d walked in the park, and I had forgotten the pleasure and mystery of walking through a wooded area on a sunny day.

You wander through a land of dappled shadows—“woven shade,” to quote W.B. Yeats—and everywhere you’re struck by the sense of secret movements and beauty hidden in the gloom.

And every patch of sun, every open area, dazzles you with a miracle of light that your eyes strain to decipher.

Before flipping my first rock, I admired the area in which it was situated: near the (thanks to yesterday’s torrential rain) babbling creek, studded with horizontal spider-webs that sliced rainbows into fine threads, dotted with bright weeds hardy enough to survive in the undergrowth.

My first rock yielded a couple of beetles like this one:

And many soil castings from, I assume, industrious earthworms (and a cricket, out of focus and hidden in the shadows of this photo).

Under several other rocks, nothing visible except for a single nematode that quickly slithered out of sight.

I kept walking, admiring the spill of rocks down a hillside that looked as if the earth itself had already flipped them more than once. I also looked up at the leaves so pierced and glowing with sunlight that they seemed to be paper-thin slices of emeralds, aventurines, jade, shivering and susurrating in the breeze.

When I lifted my final rock, a swarm of ants spilled across its surface, glittering like beads of dark amber as they scurried away from my intrusion.

I wasn’t thinking like a scientist—I probably wasn’t even thinking like a determined rock-flipper—but I stopped being so sulky about missing the shore and instead felt grateful that the event had made me take the time to relearn the astonishing infinitude of marvels existing in a world not so different from our own.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

How to Exoticize the Not-So-Other

I’ve been feeling guilty these days. Now, I have any number of things to feel guilty about, from the (non)regularity with which I dust to the fact that I’ve never gotten all the way through Moby Dick—but my guilt in this case was related to the disturbing pattern I’d fallen into in my approach towards this blog and, by extension, the natural world.

Of course it’s great to have—and take—the opportunity to see, photograph, and remark upon zoo-life, but lately I’ve found myself considering them the only subject for posts—and, therefore, the only animal subjects worthy of observation. This goes against the very title of my blog, not to mention my better nature, and I’m quite ashamed of myself. Here we are, surrounded by wild things that miraculously survive—and thrive!—even in our labyrinths of concrete: surely they too deserve notice and respect.

So I’ve tried to once again pay more attention to the world around me, even as I walk to and from work or return from the grocery store, laden with the basic necessities of fresh bread and peanut M&Ms (hey, Annie was out of town).

In doing so, I’ve become fascinated all over again by the intensity and ingenuity of urban birds and squirrels that know where, and how, to acquire food that humans discard (or, in some cases, the food that humans have looked away from for half a minute).

I spied this squirrel sneaking along the façade of an apartment building, gripping a huge hunk of bread (a bagel? a pita?) in its mouth, but I couldn’t pull my camera out in time to document the food-snatching-sneakery. I was able to capture the dirty look it gave me, though.

I also noticed some of the perching spots of local pigeons:

It made me wonder whether they tend to congregate on buildings that are, or are near, food shops during the day—the better to snatch a bite—and then retreat to more isolated areas at night.

And, on my way home one day, I spotted this insect awkwardly but determinedly navigating the jungle formed by a patch of ground ivy:

At first I feared I was ogling an invasive Japanese beetle, but a little light Googling determined that it was in fact a native June bug!

I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen a June bug before, so this was very exciting for me.

Apart from the June bug, none of these species were novel, and I didn’t see them engage in any remarkably new or atypical behavior. Nonetheless, there’s much enjoyment to be had in what is common but overlooked, and I hope to do a better job of illustrating that here.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Wild Wildlife: Sometimes I Notice Things

…Like this beetle in a morning-glory blossom, for example.

And sometime soon, when I have more energy, I’ll write more about the many other things I got to see this past week and weekend.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Can’t You See I’m Trying to Write??

Knowing as I do that invertebrates represent the vast majority (over 97%) of animal life, and knowing too that invertebrates are everywhere, I cannot in good conscience say that there are “more” invertebrates in North Carolina than there are here. I can, however, say that from my visit I’m convinced that there are many more visible invertebrates in North Carolina, and that their abundance and diversity surpasses anything I’ve seen in DC.

For example, I’ve never seen so many kinds of spiders before. I don’t have a lot of photograph evidence of this, though—since, not being skilled at instant arachnid identification, I hesitated to bring my lens too close to them for fear one would bite me in an excessively venomous manner. –But trust me, there were a lot of spiders.

There were also slugs, bees (carpenter, honey, and bumble), flies, and a variety of other multipodal creatures, like this huge and amazing millipede:

And these (perhaps-tent) caterpillars:

I was very excited about these caterpillars when I saw them along the small portion of the Appalachian Trail on which I wandered one afternoon; I also spotted lots of other cool insects, like this…um…katydid, perhaps…?

And this enormous (and slightly camera-shy) beetle:

After a while, though, I decided that I wanted to sit, eat an apple while admiring the river, and write. Unfortunately, the invertebrates had not been informed of my new agenda.

There I was, sitting on a rock near the water, trying to concentrate, and all these creatures were getting in my way.

The caterpillars landing on my jacket weren’t so bad, but the spiders that decided to colonize my rock were a little more alarming. And the tiny biting flies that landed all over and—well, bit me—were just too much.

[they even landed on my pen; how shameless can you get?]

I was in a state of incredible indignation for quite a while. Then, slowly—ever so slowly—my incredible temerity dawned on me. Here I was in the great outdoors, scandalized that these organisms were present in their own habitat. –How dare they treat me like the interloper that I was? Couldn’t they understand that I wanted to commune with nature? –And here was all this wildlife getting in the way!

Once I realized what I’d been doing, I was able to be a little less critical and a little more appreciative of this opportunity to be surrounded—albeit very closely—by nature.

It didn’t reconcile me to the biting flies, though.

[big scary hairy spider on my raincoat]

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}